A CASE OF DOUBLE VISION -- Chapter Seven
“It seems Mr. Hoot was not well liked in the village. Not a soul expressed surprise at how he met his end.” Lestrade dusted sugary crumbs from his waistcoat, leaving powered white streaks. “How this town runs without a proper police force is beyond me. They have one elderly constable who has been around since King Arthur trotted about in the woods. He can barely read or write and doesn’t speak properly either on account of him missing most of his teeth. As for the behemoth who works alongside him, I won’t get into the fact he’s got a glass eye. They leave the real work up to that massive goblin, six foot eight inches tall, who tells me he’s dealing with the crime and how my help isn’t needed–The preposterous cheek!” Lestrade shook his head and took another bite of his beignet leaving another rain of crumbs and sugar, most of which went inside of his collar. “If it wasn’t for that mayor, what’s his name–Littlebaum, I think he called himself–The whole case would have hinged on that sole constable’s testimony if it even managed to get to court. He was ready to call it death by misadventure. Backwoods sheep herders and illiterate paddy farmers, it’s bloody murder is what it is!”
Mycroft was only half listening for he was paying far more attention to Jack who was now leaning close and whispering to Ingrid as they huddled together in the far corner of the library. Harriette and Mary finally succumbed to their travelling and retired for the night in an exhausted, mutual shuffle up the grand stairs. It was close to midnight and after a day of touring the grounds and rooms of the Holmes estate Mycroft, Jack, Ingrid and Lestrade descended to the reading room, where a warm fire was now gently heating the cozy space. Unlike his father’s study, which was attached by a long glass door to the arboretum, the library was tucked into the far innards of the estate, underground at a level lower than the kitchen,. Where the study was open and allowed in all of the sun’s rays and a good view of the foliage beyond it, the library had no windows and relied heavily on gaslight for illumination. It was a strange place to put a library the lack of natural light should have made it difficult to read, but the candles were plentiful and the gaslights gave off a steady enough, warm glow, the result easier on the eyes than one would expect.
“You stopped at the bakery again?” Mycroft raised a brow at the crumbs littering around Lestrade like a halo of wheat and powdered sugar. “A tad excessive, don’t you think?”
“It was Littlebaum’s idea,” Lestrade insisted. “They aren’t used to crime scenes around here, and the smell of the blood and death, not to mention the terrible conditions Hoot’s family lived in made us gather for the comfort of sweets after getting our fill of the scene. I’m sure Mrs. Hoot does her best, but with six children and most of them sickly it’s a wonder the slight little thing can rise from her bed at all. She can’t weigh more than eighty pounds and I’m being generous. The children are little thin blades of grass. All of which makes that fat oaf’s corpse all the more worthy of his end, if you ask me. I’ve seen plenty of his like in the East End. Drinking all their money away without a thought for their families and heavy fisted about it.” Lestrade shook his head at the selfishness of it. “How does a man live that kind of life? Embroiled forever in anger and laziness. He’s of more use to them as a corpse, as it stands. His young widow is set to have a good payout, thanks to his farmer’s insurance.”
Mycroft settled into the deep red leather chair by the fire, its cushions adjusting to his slight form perfectly. He picked up a copy of the new Law Society Gazette which he had been pressed to review from several of his peers, but then let it drop and instead chose Motorcycling and Motoring which despite being only a few months old was already as dogeared as if it had been a Bible passed down through generations. He kept such curiosity from Mr. Pinter, who was still their chief coachman, but the tides of progress were beginning and he longed to experience the speed and smoothness of a motor car, a fascinating invention that had already been implemented in several of London’s precincts and was used to transport groups of fellow officers to public gatherings where they could control the crowds. Progress excited him, and frightened him as well He was no Luddite but he still felt nervous about the telephone they had installed at Holmes estate It was Lestrade who had become insistent upon the importance of its use, and he had the line built and put in within the week of their discussion about it.
Mrs. Hudson, of course, had already had one put in the front hall at 221 Baker Street the minute they left for the estate, and according to Jack it hasn’t stopped ringing since.
“If you didn’t need to remain at the crime scene to discuss it, it seems there was not much to go over,” Mycroft observed. “How did the man meet his end?”
“Done in with a fire poker through the heart,” Lestrade said. “Very quickly, and with surprising unflinching efficiency, like he’d been assassinated by a professional.”
Mycroft paled at this, but did not look up from his magazine. He pretended the image of a pretty, red Ford Model A caught the bulk of his attention. “I’ve not known the local village to be full of expert murderers.”
“He was already passed out on the ground when he was pinned by it. Still, it would take a good amount of strength and force to get the poker past the breastplate, and that tiny little wife of his could barely lift a frying pan let alone do in her husband, so it’s safe to say she’s not a suspect. Her children are all too young, varying in age from infant to six years old, and all of them half starved as it is. They live in a tiny single room cottage with a dirt floor, a couple of beds roughly constructed from knotted logs, a table and three chairs and one iron frying pan on a coal stove. There’s cracked plates on a shelf and a couple of faded teacups given to them in charity, those are on a makeshift shelf above the small, broken cabinet that serves as a pantry.
Cheap aluminum utensils were laid out on the table when I went in. The sheets on the nearby beds were threadbare and the wool blankets so patched it was hard to tell what was the original fabric. Truly, I have not seen such poverty since I have been shovelling up corpses along the Thames waterfront and it is a disgrace to find it here, where there is ample room for fellow villagers to aid in Mrs. Hoot’s dilemma.”
“It seems as though someone did just that.” Mycroft let the magazine rest in his lap as he concentrated on what Lestrade had said. “Mr. Healey remarked on him, and speculated he was your murder victim. Surely this means that everyone in the village was well aware of his neglect and abuse and thus were not tolerant of it. I suspect Mrs. Hoot and the children have been on the receiving end of the village’s charity for quite some time.”
“I should hope so, but you can’t bank on the generosity of country folk, I’m sure Mary Oakes would attest to that. She had to escape to London to seek her fortune when she lost her Gran, and no one cared to ask after her. We all know what her early life was like when she arrived, still a child, in that bustling den of depravity we call Haymarket..” Lestrade frowned as he stood in front of the fire, the embers colouring him in a sepia glow. “Apathy is a specifically cruel human trait, for even ants rally around injured fellows. Further awful still is the way that its opposite, empathy, can be used for acts of evil. I have no suspects, Mycroft. Too many wanted the rotten bastard dead. Right down to the newborn babe.”
“Surely there was a witness?”
“None at all.” Lestrade tore his gaze from the fire and addressed Jack, who was still huddled with Ingrid in the corner of the library, her copy of the Rubaiyat open on her knees. “Jack, perhaps you have some insights? You would have been proud of him, Mycroft, he approached the body without a care in the world, didn’t blush or pale at the sight of it and immediately bent down and got to work identifying the fatal blow to Hoot’s heart. He found the poker, too, placed back at the fireplace in its usual spot, according to Mrs. Hoot. What do you make of the crime scene, Jack? You were detailed in your report, go on and relate it back to Mycroft.”
Jack, however, was very reluctant to revisit the crime scene even as an abstract and he didn’t leave Ingrid’s side instead remaining half in the dark with her. “As you said, it was straight forward. The one who did it had to have some good strength to get through those bones, it’s true, but then he wasn’t a healthy man with the strong stamina of the working classes. He was an alcoholic and had little by way of proper nutrition. His bones were a lot frailer than most and there were definite signs of degeneration so we can’t entirely rule out that it was done by a woman.” Jack was pensive. “It was a waste of time, to be honest. He had all the signs of fatal cancer–Jaundice indicating lost kidney function, hollowed eyes from lack of nutrients reaching the body, wasting of the muscles and a quick press upon his stomach revealed myriad tumours within it. I wouldn’t have given him a month of life. All that was needed to make Mrs. Hoot a widow without the drama of murder was patience.”
“Mrs. Hoot cries out ‘Whoo Whoo?’ into the night, and doesn’t get an answer.”
“Gregory talks of apathy and you leap upon the notion like you fashioned it. Really, Ingrid, that is not appropriate, a man is dead...”
“A dreadful man,” Ingrid reminded him.
“Yes, but murder is murder.”
“Not when it’s karma,” Ingrid replied.
Jack choked on a laugh at this and was quick to quash it when he saw his two benefactors were glaring at him in unison. He hid his remaining smile behind his palm, his fingers spread wide across his handsome face.
“She has a point, no matter how rude it is,” Lestrade said. He stood over the fire, his weight rested on his elbow at the mantel. Lit from beneath him, the fire cast eerie shadows over him. “I haven’t got a single witness and without that my deductive method feels useless. The murderer was careful and clean, the worst sort of criminal, for they leave nothing behind except the very clear message that they have done this before and have learned from past mistakes. We used Coulier’s iodine fuming method to draw prints off of surfaces but to no avail–it’s obvious the murderer used gloves.”
“What of Mrs. Hoot’s associates?” Mycroft tucked his copy of Motoring and Motorcycles back into the magazine rack at the side of his chair and gave Lestrade’s problem his full attention. “She obviously is a woman with friends as so many in the village are aware of her desperate situation. What do they have to say about it?”
Lestrade’s mood instantly became hooded and dark. “They pulled ranks.”
Mycroft blinked at this. “How do you mean?”
“How else do I mean? The lot of them hide behind their skirts like it’s a fortress! Not one said anything, not one heard anything, not one saw anything–No complaints, nothing! Of course every one of them is lying and there’s no way to infiltrate that kind of united inner secrecy without wearing the right skirt!” He tore himself from the fireplace and stormed to the tea cart where a brandy decanter and a set of crystal tumblers were polished and waiting. He poured himself a generous drink and then, as an afterthought, bid Mycroft to have one as well and he nodded his assent.
“Women are such frustrating creatures,” Lestrade continued, handing Mycroft his glass of brandy which he took with both hands. “They back-stab each other with remarkable acuity and yet when the need for such a competitive, catty attitude presents itself they are all suddenly in solidarity! I am forever grateful that I am a man who has no need for them!”
“I suspect the feeling is mutual,” Ingrid muttered.
Mycroft sighed. The warmth from the brandy was loosening his lips and he enjoyed the faint warm tingle he felt upon them. “You are being prejudicial, Gregory, for you can not lump ‘all women’ into this scenario for we have plenty of intelligent examples of that half of our species to draw better conclusions from. In fact, they are under our roof at present. There is no conspiracy, there is only feminine support.”
Ingrid scoffed at this. “Mr. Lestrade is right. Women are terrible to one another usually, and love to rip a girl to ribbons over not wearing the right colours that match or getting the right edition of a textbook, or, heaven forbid, she not perform some exacting minutiae of social propriety like not putting out a pinkie when drinking tea or painting one’s lips too bright a shade or blushing too much or being too pale or being too fat or too thin or perhaps being a hussy because she longs for love or being frigid because she could care less about it. Pick, pick, pick is how most women relate to one another...So for them to be in agreement about something, and something this juicy and salacious, well...There is definitely a witness or two or three among them and they have closed themselves off from you because gossip has become too much of a risk for the entire group and not just one lone chicken ready to be beheaded.”
“It’s a terrible fact, but she’s right.” Jack stretched out his legs and crossed his arms. Despite his youth he would look the perfect pub gentleman if he had a pipe in his mouth. “Mrs. Hudson has witnessed it herself at The London School of Medicine for Women where there is fierce competition between the women studying there to the point they ostracize one another during the anatomical practicals. But then, just as easily, if they see that even an unpopular student is genuinely struggling and merely needs some emotional support, they rally around them like little hens nurturing a chick and study with her until she begins to improve. But make no mistake, the nitpicking on the wards between nurses of different schooling is terribly fierce and while they don’t poison each other for fun like the male doctors do, the female doctors schooling for an attempt at practice are known for being draconian and unbending in their quest for perfect medicine. There is no sense of humour among any of them, at least according to Mrs. Hudson.”
“When you are at war with the lowered expectations of your gender there is hardly room for ‘fun’.” Ingrid snapped her copy of the Rubaiyat closed. “I’m tired, and bored. I’m going to bed.”
Mycroft considered bringing up the issue of the note from her headmistress once again, especially now that Lestrade was present, but he no longer had the energy for the draining argument that would ensue. Truthfully, he had no clue how to best approach the subject with her, for the conversation this evening revealed much about Ingrid’s current relationship with her peers. Was she on the gossiped end, nitpicked and bullied and left in torn ribbons and was too proud to admit defeat? Or was she the oppressor, a far worse scenario, and some other young woman was her ostracized victim? Or, worst of all and most likely, was she the mastermind behind a following, with weaker peers hanging on her strange, disjointed wisdom as though she were some bosomed guru bringing them her dark, nihilistic version of enlightenment? She could certainly argue like one.
Ingrid swept out of the room like a faerie creature, her long hair and light skirts trailing behind her like gossamer wings.
“We must talk to her tomorrow, Gregory.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her that some manners can’t fix,” he shot back. He took a very large gulp of his brandy and grimaced over it.
Mycroft turned back to Jack. “I did not know Mrs. Hudson had become so active at the university. When did this start?”
“In mid June. She teaches several classes, notably on wound dressings and another on surgical hygiene. She’s very excited because Dr. Rukhmabai is guest lecturing this month and she’s hoping it means a surge of female specialists attending the school from India. She’s become a bit of fixture herself there, our Mrs. Hudson has, and there’s even been a few articles written about her outspoken criticism of cauterization over stitches and the traditional use of mercury for treating syphilis instead of bismuth in combination with arsenic compounds, a practice she calls medieval.”
“I’m sure that has won her favour among the male surgeons,” Mycroft deadpanned. “Her celebrity might be more of the forceful type found on revolutionaries.”
“She is passionate about her work,” Jack insisted.
“Passion must be properly directed, as it is in you, dear boy,” Lestrade fondly replied. He had poured himself another brandy much to Mycroft’s chagrin. “I was quite proud of your efforts today, as I have mentioned to Mycroft. You are getting close to an age where you can decide which precinct you wish to work in...”
“I am not interested in going over that at present.” Jack feigned a yawn. “Perhaps it’s time I retire myself, it’s been a long journey and day.”
“We can discuss it over breakfast.”
Jack hesitated, and unfortunately, Lestrade caught it. “I..I’m going to be busy tomorrow. Mr. Healey has invited me on a hike across the estate grounds and in the surrounding forest and it will take us quite some time. I’m keen to upgrade my knowledge of known medicinal herbs and their properties and would like to get a hands on excursion of them.”
“Mr. Healey!” Lestrade exclaimed. “Since when does a walk in the woods with an old superstitious gardener become more important than police work!”
Jack opened his mouth as though to discuss the matter further and then shut it, thinking the better of it. His mouth became a thin, determined line. He wouldn’t meet either of their gaze and he slunk away after a muttered “Goodnight.” His steps were oddly light as he went up the stairs leading to the bedrooms, as though he were careful of breaking a fragile mood.
Thus there was a lingering tension in the air, made all the worse by the sip Lestrade took of his brandy, staring at the spot where Jack and Ingrid had been sitting, his frown descending into a scowl.
Mycroft did not dare to tempt that silence with his opinion on the matter.
“I worry about him,” Lestrade finally said. “He’s got his head full of weird notions and he was more like Inspector Harding at that crime scene, all over the body and talking about the man’s condition and with only a passing glance at the wound that did him in. I’m not sure about his work ethic.”
“His success in his studies says otherwise,” Mycroft reminded him.
“His focus is off.”
“Perhaps, as I’ve said, he’s not made for police work and would prefer the other side of the law.”
“We’re not having this push me, pull me conversation right now. He’s not a queasy sort, he likes to be hands on, he’s no paper pusher and a desk would diminish him. Detecting is an art, Mycroft, and I intend to make him a virtuoso.”
Mycroft knew better than to argue. He watched Lestrade skulk off, and waited until his steps echoed down the long hallway to the bedroom that adjoined his own. He wondered if Lestrade would keep his door open. Considering his current dark mood it was unlikely.
He shook open the magazine he’d closed and lost himself in the new Model A.